This is the official blog of the Consul General, U.S.Consulate General Hyderabad.

Friday, December 14, 2012

One Village’s Solution to Domestic Violence

The U.S. Consulate General, Hyderabad participated in a
number of events observing “16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence,” a
global campaign dedicated to the awareness and the elimination of gender-based
violence.One such event was a trip
to Toopran, a village 50 kilometers outside Hyderabad, where Consul General
Katherine Dhanani and I attended a meeting of the state government’s Society
for Elimination of Rural Poverty (SERP). SERP sponsors a number of social
programs including a program that utilizes groups of mostly female villagers,
known as Social Action Committees (SAC), in conjunction with community-managed
Family Counseling Centers to help detect, arbitrate, and resolve domestic
issues in local communities. The program is designed to resolve domestic
disputes before they are brought into the judicial system, a process which can
take many years to reach resolution. The program is mostly rural and utilizes
nearly 15,000 members in 1,440 SACs throughout the state to counsel fellow
villagers and raise awareness of such social issues as domestic violence, child
marriage, girl child education, substance abuse, and dowry harassment.

India, like many countries including the United States,
suffers from societal ills such as domestic violence and issues related to
substance abuse. India also has a number of issues that we generally don’t see
in the United States, including child marriage and dowry harassment. Although
both men and women are affected by these issues, women are most often the
victims. Furthermore, many women do not have the support systems, education, or
resources they need to help them resolve these issues and are often afraid to
turn to local police or government authorities. Women seeking assistance and
justice can now turn to a group of peers in whom they can find trust and
empathy.

A SAC will open a case for the victim and then proceed to take
action. To me, the process seems very similar to what we in the United States
would consider an intervention. After receiving the complaint, a SAC will
attempt to counsel the offending party and convince them to attend a session at
one of the Family Counseling Centers along with the aggrieved party. The
counselors are a kind of hybrid between a therapist and a legal arbitrator who
seek not only to resolve the current dispute but to alter the behavior or
mentality that led to the issue in the first place. Community sentiment and
involvement are still very strong in rural India today and social pressure can
be a powerful force. SACs seek to harness this force to affect change through
social obligation as well as legal obligation.

During the meeting, we heard stories of how members of SACs
successfully addressed domestic issues in rural areas. During their interaction
with the consul general, a few domestic violence victims narrated the problems
that the SACs helped them overcome, such as securing a withheld inheritance and
overcoming physical abuse. SAC members described the challenges they faced in
achieving success with arbitration and counseling. Impressed by the grit and
determination shown by the victims as well as the members of the SACs, Consul
General Dhanani said that she was truly inspired by the accounts she heard.
“You have given me excitement and encouragement,” she remarked. CG Dhanani
noted that although men may have greater physical strength, woman have the
mental fortitude to overcome any challenge in life.

Travis Coberly is the
Political-Economic Officer at the U.S. Consulate General, Hyderabad.

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About the Consul General

Katherine Dhanani has been a Foreign Service Officer since 1990. Most recently she was the Deputy Chief of Mission in the U.S. Embassy in Harare.
Ms. Dhanani trained as an Economist at Kenyon College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and taught economics at Grinnell College before joining the Foreign Service.